Abject Suffering - podcast cover

Abject Suffering

Duckfeed Productions LLCwww.abjectsuffering.com
This is a podcast that's nominally about bad games. In reality, it's about the horror of daily life, GameFAQs Gold, strange combatants in the battle of Good vs. Evil, and a singular patriarch known only as Crick. Every Monday, Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross choose a game at random from the titles submitted by listeners, play it, and venture off on a freeform discussion that winds between the topic at hand, and the absurd.
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Episodes

Episode 56: The Rocketeer

BREAKING NEWS: Babe Ruth sinks a fly ball right into the cerebral cortex of Joseph Goebbels in this alternate universe where balls are the new phallic symbol.

Sep 29, 201431 min

Episode 54: Hydlide

Cat*fish [kat-fish]: noun. 1. any of various fishes having a fancied resemblance to a cat. verb (used without object), verb (used with object) 2. Slang. to deceive, swindle, etc. by assuming a false identity or personality online: "He fell in love with her online before he realized he'd been catfished." 3. Slang. to advertise that your game has sweet wizards and skeletons and then have the game not deliver on that promise. "He fell in love with the box to Hydlide before he realized that the game...

Sep 15, 201427 min

Episode 53: Chex Quest

GENERAL MILLS MEMORANDUM: All Staff. For several fiscal reporting periods, we've all felt the systemic pressure on the Chex brand that arises due to the close relationship between the corn-square vertical and the dairy vertical. If you will open the nearest box of Chex, you will see the results of our new corporate initiative to demonize milk and the phlegm it causes. And you'll also get 50 free hours of America Online.

Sep 08, 201437 min

Episode 52: Bébé's Kids

Job Posting: NEEDED - Tone Lōc Lookalike (or: Lōcalike). Does not need to sound like Tone Lōc, I will cover the auditory portion of the ruse. Need to handle infestation of Bébé's kids at my theme park. Will pay in funnel cakes and ride vouchers. Call between 7am and 4pm, ask for "Rap Man".

Sep 01, 201431 min

Episode 51: Psybadek

Text found on a flyer of a Bronx corner store: "HEY, YOU KIDS. DROP YOU'RE CYBADEKS AND STOP CONTRIBUTIN TO THE DEGRADATION'S OF SOCIETY. THE NEXT CYPADEK I SEE IS GOING RIGHT IN THE GARBAGE" and then the rest is torn off.

Aug 25, 201430 min

Episode 50: Bad Mojo

We're tired of it. Being pushed around, look down upon, treated like garbage. One day, soon, we're going to... oh god, we're bugs now. Fortune, and good mojo, have ordained that our 50th episode be about a good game that one of us actually played to completion!

Aug 18, 201439 min

Episode 49: Darkwing Duck

Script Treatment: Duck Generations. EXT. -- DAY: Donald, Scrooge, Darkwing, and Jason Alexander waddle into a liquor store, shades perched precariously on their bill. Each squawks incomprehensibly, as if trying to out-fury each other. ECU on a nervous clerk's face as they flock toward the corn liquor. The streets would be rowdy.

Aug 11, 201429 min

Episode 48: Toys

Hey Robin Williams: You cool, dawg? Can't quite settle on a single voice there. We're on to your "spaghetti against the wall" garbage. Black preacher? So played, and kind of racist. Nobody actually remembers when you were any good at anything.

Aug 04, 201429 min

Episode 47: Dudes With Attitude

We were walking the perimeter of the Crick estate, shoring up the tree line and clearing brush. Michael kicked aside some beer cans, and chuckled quietly to himself. "What's so funny?" I asked, wiping my brow to keep the sweat bees at bay. "Teens. It's always the teens" he said, looking back to the compound. My time with Michael had been short, but I knew to let it go. He'd seen his fair share of dudes with attitude, and I could leave it at that.

Jul 28, 201433 min

Episode 46: Master Chu and Drunkard Hu

Mark another tally up on the "Canonical Worst Games" wall. Odds are good we're going to clear this pantheon out. One day a hard rain is gonna come, suffering style.

Jul 21, 201426 min

Episode 43: Godzilla

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound he pulls the spitting high tension wires down. Helpless people ona subway train scream, bug-eyed as he looks in on them. He picks up a bus and he throws it back down as he wades through the buildings toward the center of town. Oh no, they say he's got to go. Go go Godzilla! Oh now, there goes Tokyo. Go go Godzilla! History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of men.

Jun 30, 201426 min

Episode 42: Shadowrun

Mediocrity is the most mortal sin of all. So we'll kindly excuse ourselves out the side door.

Jun 23, 201429 min

Episode 41: Cho Aniki

This might be the third rail, but I'll bend over and take it. Spray your disapproval all over me if you must, but I believe, to the very last drop of my being, that we need more positivity in this world. If it has to come in the form of Cho Aniki, in its celebration of the male form, then sign me up.

Jun 16, 201430 min

Episode 40: Strider

Like thieves in the night, we assassinate a game that is misguidedly referred to as a "classic" by some poor souls who don't know any better.

Jun 09, 201430 min

Episode 39: A Week of Garfield

Being on a weekly format, we've had to cut some corners. Syndication is tough, so in order to keep our quality consistent (if mediocre), we've farmed the creation of these shows out to a network of corporate subsidiaries. Stay tuned for the reveal of Gary and Kole alarm clocks and calendars. It's a living!

Jun 02, 201432 min

Episode 38: Felix the Cat

Come with us to a time before sound, when dancing cats were no longer condemned as signs of witchcraft, even though they carried bags of tricks. To a time where Kole, unstuck in time, actually liked Felix the Cat at a young age. To a time when we play an amazing platformer on this show that is ostensibly about bad games.

May 26, 201426 min

Episode 37: Superman 64

Faster than a frightened cockroach. More powerful than my aversion to the sun. Able to disappoint your parents in a single loan. It's Superman 64!

May 19, 201431 min

Episode 35: Samurai Ghost

It’s strange but true, but customs that we attribute to a given locale often have shared roots. For example, did you know that seppuku and pumpkin carving come from the same, misguided place? Listen to the end to find out! We are joined by Riff from Video Games Hot Dog. Follow him at @rifflesby (http://twitter.com/rifflesby). Special Guest: Riff Conner.

Apr 28, 201436 min

Episode 34: Harley's Humongous Adventure

There are many ways in which a man can be small. Let's take stature as a given. There's also pettiness, deceit, closed-mindedness... All of these diminish us. What else diminishes us? Shrink rays of our own design. We already live in an alien world, we just don't have the perspective to appreciate it. Additionally: These cans with articulated lids don't speak with H. Jon Benjamin's voice, and jetpacks are compromised grappling hooks.

Apr 14, 201430 min

Episode 33: Body Harvest

In the long view, the Ninentdo 64 might be Abject Suffering, the system. In our initial estimate, the NES seemed like the most fertile and hateful ground... but the N64 is a remarkable moment in history where everyone's reach exceeded their grasp. Example: Body Harvest, an open world game that came out almost a decade before open world games were good. But someone had to be first, right?

Mar 31, 201429 min

Episode 32: King of Dragons

We're not fond of turning nouns into verbs, but "thrifting" is to be considered a valid terminology for the purposes of this podcast. We're not proud, and we never said we weren't hypocrites. We also never promised to do things like "actually talk about the game we're supposed to talk about". That's your bad. You assumed that.

Mar 17, 201438 min

Episode 31: Episode 31: Ballz 3D

Squares. Circles. Tetrahedrons. The stately geodesic dome. Icosahedrons. Cubes. Hypercubes. Sentient cubes. BALLZ.

Mar 03, 201436 min

Episode 30: Cool World

How does a person feel when they stare into the smoldering, waiting eyes of their creation? When it clambers for your attention... wanting love, wanting validation... wanthing to feel something, ANYTHING. That's how God feels about you ever day. God loves you. To death. Special Guest: Brayton Cameron.

Feb 17, 201440 min

Episode 29: Yu-Gi-Oh!: Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel

Not everyone knows the creation myth for anime. One day in a peaceful village in Japan, a truck carrying a surplus of decimal places from the war overturned, spilling extra zeroes and permanently altering the population. What was once 20 was soon 20,000. And so on, and so on, in kind. That's why everything in anime is predicated on shouting ridiculously high numbers... because the creators had no other choice.

Feb 03, 201445 min

Episode 28: Stone Protectors

Stones are pretty neat. They have things to say about the world around us. Like Andy Dufresne once said, "All it takes is pressure and time." Natural forces shape the elements of our world into beautiful crystalline forms that dazzle and delight. What stones can't do is support an entire multimedia blitz with bad puns related to (ugh) rock and roll.

Jan 20, 201438 min

Episode 27: Scrapyard Dog

Your average hot tub is kept at around 100 degrees farenheit. While many find this temperature to be pleasing on their muscles and soothing on their joints, what they don't realize is that this is also approximately the temperature of the inside of their buttholes. And, in fact, the act of sharing a hot tub with a group of strangers is a form of communal Butthole Soup Making. So, think about that next time you're in a jacuzzi.

Jan 06, 201445 min
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